'Israel a scum state,' says top Amnesty Int'l official

The head of Amnesty International's Finnish branch, Frank Johansson, wrote in Finland's third largest newspaper this week that he views Israel as a "scum state."

In his column for Iltalehti, Johansson recounted that during a recent visit a friend who works in Israel told him that Israel is, in his eyes, "a scum state."

Johansson then wrote that "based on my own visit[s], which occurred during the 1970s and for the last time in the 1990s, I agree."

When questioned by The Jerusalem Post, Johansson stood by his remarks, and said they were based on what he called Israel's "repeated flouting of international law," and his own personal experiences with Israelis.

Israel has long maintained that organizations such as Amnesty International and the people who run them do not give the Jewish state a fair shake due to personal biases and politicized views of the conflict.

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